Recent cold snap doesn't disprove climate change

This is in response to a recent letter declaring that recent cold snaps disprove global warming ("Global Warming? Not if you go by our weather," by Lee Covino, December 11):

Global warming produces extremes in weather, both hot and cold. Only the yearly average temperature (and the temperature of the earth) matters, and that is going up. Global warming puts more moisture in the air so storms (even snowstorms) are more severe.

But oil industry-funded "scientists" get publicity. It’s the tobacco industry method all over again.

Another problem is people’s limited attention span. No one remembers the year before. Was last winter a cold one? Nope. I heard people all winter commenting on how much colder it could have been. We had the second warmest January on record. Only February acted like a normal winter and had a few huge snowstorms. That’s global climate change.

Your inability to remember all but the days you had to shovel your car out won’t cool the planet, and neither will your desire to support the conservative agenda with its love of oil.